


Casts No Shadow

by prosciutto



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, so much swearing, vigilantes are awesome fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosciutto/pseuds/prosciutto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh come on, instead of wasting time annihilating each other, we could just work together.”</p><p>“I work alone.” </p><p>“Oh come on, don’t go all brooding superhero on me. It’s a slow night. Want to grab some food?” </p><p> </p><p>Or, the one when they're both vigilantes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Casts No Shadow

Clarke Griffin has the absolute worst luck in the world, so it’s honestly no surprise that she gets photographed in pink sweats on her first day of this whole let’s-try-to-be-a-vigilante debacle.

 

To be fair, she was at the gym and Monty only managed to pick up on the hostage situation when it had escalated to the point of total and utter chaos. Gun shots heard, estimated two people dead and one severely injured. Lots of hysterics and the police were nowhere to be seen.

 

Fucking typical of law enforcers.

 

It’s not that Clarke thinks that they’re inefficient and corrupt. It’s that Clarke _knows_ that they’re inefficient and corrupt.

 

So she heads down straight away in her pink sweats, hood up, and with the only gun she has in her bag: a pistol. It’s almost laughable how easy it is. Then again, it’s kind of difficult for hardened criminals to take you seriously in pink velour sweat pants. (Just _fuck_ that seriously.)

 

She calls an ambulance after and ties the idiots to the lamp pole outside the precinct. Someone witnesses the entire thing, snaps a shot of her receding back, posts it on Twitter.

 

In all of five minutes, Clarke Griffin is suddenly Princess Gunslinger, the rogue vigilante of Arcadia.

 

Raven finds a few good tweets, saves them to her phone so she can pull them up to laugh. Cowboy princess had been an actual suggestion. She supposes gunslinger isn’t too bad in retrospective. Still doesn’t mean she likes it though.

 

Clarke burns the sweats when she gets home. It never flattered her ass anyway.

 

Raven makes her a new costume, with all the bells and lights and hoopla and while it’s still pink, (“It’s your trademark colour! Clarke you’re a princess, it’s your thing.”) it’s a hundred times more badass. Clarke gets customised weapons; shiny guns and switchblades and whatever technological genius Raven comes up with. It’s pretty awesome.

 

She’s careful not to kill anyone, just delivers them to the authorities in spectacularly creative ways. (Her favourite involves a zipline and a very, very dramatic entrance with a fog machine.) Crime rates dip and while she’s exhausted a lot, she’s satisfied in the knowledge that she’s making a difference.

 

Then Monty gets a nemesis. And it all goes to shit.

 

She heads to the lair after a gruelling shift at work (Doctors just don’t get paid enough for what they do, okay?) only to find her team freaking out about someone trying to block them out of the police network.

 

Now, Clarke is selective when it comes to choosing team members. These people are the best of their various fields. So when they panic- and not just any kind of panic either, it’s heads chopped off, limbs on fire kind of panic- Clarke knows its something big.

 

“Monty, talk to me.” She says, laying her hand on his shoulder.

 

“Oh sure, let’s braid our hair while we’re at it,” He snaps, “Why don’t you ask me again after I stop this hacker from accessing our files and discovering your identity?”

 

“Shit,” Clarke mutters, “Is he any good?”

 

“Would I be having a freak out if he weren’t?” He yells. Monty never yells. This is officially a code-red situation, Clarke thinks grimly.

 

“You think the police finally got someone good on their team?”

 

“They’re all Neanderthals, I don’t think so. I have no idea what he wants or what he’s hoping to do with this information. Just pray I can stop him.”

 

“Clarke,” Raven interrupts, “There’s been a disturbance at the grocery store two blocks away. From what I know it just seems like a bunch of stupid teenagers but you should go.”

 

“But-” She gestures helplessly at Monty, who’s jabbing his keyboard so hard the letter K dislodges. “Shit.”

 

“It’s not like you can help us anyway,” Raven mutters, “Suit up and go. I’ll keep you updated.”

 

It’s probably a bunch of dickheads with water pistols but Clarke still puts on the whole she-bang and grabs all her gear. She considers driving down but her tank is empty so she runs instead, cursing the entire way. Fucking teenagers, man.

 

What she finds is not what she expects.

 

Three teenagers getting the shit beat out of them by a guy with a bow.

 

“You do not,” Aforementioned mysterious man says breathlessly in between loud whacks, “Steal a bunch of shit from a store and then draw penises on a old lady’s van. That is just rude. Where are your fucking manners? Jesus. Fucking youths!”

 

To be fair, he’s not using extreme force on them. Clarke can tell that he’s just roughing them up a little. But the mask? The spanx? The fucking bow and quiver of arrows stashed on his back? Who does this guy think he is?

 

“Hey!” She shouts, storming up to him, “Who the fuck are you?”

 

He turns away from them and holy shit, he’s huge. He towers over her, cutting an impressive figure and Clarke would be intimidated if she didn’t have like, seven guns with her and a knife in her boot.

 

“Hey, princess gunslinger!” He says all casual, “Big fan. How are you doing tonight?”

 

His face is covered by a dark mask: similar to hers, except hers is pink to go with the whole look. She makes out messy dark curls, tanned skin, and nunchucks hanging by his belt.

 

“This is not amateur hour,” She snipes, “I can take it from here.”

 

“Amateur hour?” He laughs, “On the contrary, I think I know what I’m doing. Don’t need your help. Run along now,” He says dismissively.

 

“Excuse me? You can’t just-”

 

“Look princess, you can’t just pull this vigilante shit and expect others to not want to do the same. We have the same goals here: protecting the city. No harm done to have a extra pair of hands out on the streets, right?”

 

“I don’t know what’s your problem,” She seethes, “But this isn’t a game to me. Hand them over to me and I’ll get them to the station.”

 

He just smirks at her, crossing his arms over his broad chest, “What? Can’t handle a little competition?”

 

“I’m _princess gunslinger_ ,” Clarke practically spits, “I’m the _shit_ around here.”

 

She’s up in his face now, her hands tightening against the holster by her side. He stares right back, posture tense, ready to strike. Clarke licks her lips, considers lashing out. Maybe not her gun, but she if she could reach for the knife in her boot-

 

Then she hears sirens and the spell is broken. He pulls away first, stepping backwards into the darkness of the alley behind them.

 

“See you around princess.” He says, waving a hand mockingly.

 

“I didn’t get a name!” She shouts to his retreating back.

 

He turns to look at her, lips curling into a wide grin, showing all his teeth, “Call me Claudius.”

 

He melts into the shadows, disappearing from sight.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Claudius blows up on the internet the very next day.

 

Not from the grocery store incident, of course. A fire broke out in a apartment building and Claudius heroically came in to save the day, rescuing tons of people from the burning building.

 

The internet hasn’t come to a consensus on his nickname yet so Clarke hears variations of ‘Arcadia’s Legolas’ and ‘Batman With A Bow’ and ‘sex on a fucking stick’ throughout her work day. Ugh.

 

“He’s so hot,” Her intern, Harper, gushes as they make their rounds. “My friend was there and she got a photo of his ass, and it’s so-”

 

“I don’t see what’s the big deal,” Clarke interrupts, “We already have a vigilante looking out for Arcadia.”

 

“Yeah but this guy is hot.”

 

She wishes she could fight Harper on this but it’s an irrefutable point that Claudius is attractive. She doesn’t even need to look at his face to know it. So Clarke just grits her teeth, gets to work and prays that he gets hit by a truck in the coming few hours.

 

By the end of her shift, the internet has unanimously decided on Archer. (How dare he get a cooler nickname than her? God, if she wasn’t mad before, she is now.) A fansite goes up and a few photos of him from the fire are released. Clarke goes through all of them while hate-eating through a bag of Lays. Claudius even saves all the pets. She wants to hit the guy.

 

She gets a call from Monty when she’s filling up gas, and she knows that it’s bad the minute she picks up.

 

“That Archer guy is a prick,” He says darkly and Clarke has never loved Monty so much in her life.

 

“I know,” She agrees, “So pretentious. And his costume is just tacky.”

 

“It’s not that,” Monty says, “Clarke, he’s the guy who hacked into my system last night. Well, either him or someone he has working for him. I managed to keep our defenses up but they left a little message.”

 

“What. The. Fuck.”

 

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. This is a whole new calibre we’re dealing with. They’re actually good.”

 

“We’re better,” She snarls, “We can take them.”

 

He sighs. “Look, Clarke. All I’m saying is that you should prepare yourself for the possibility that you might see him tonight.”

 

“I’m counting on it.” She snaps.

 

“I’m not telling you to kill him, but maybe you could severely maim him. Just you know, a suggestion.”

 

She does see him that night. It’s a particularly slow one and so she’s not surprised when she finds him yelling at people for jaywalking.

 

“What’s up, princess?” He says when he spots her, a shit-eating grin blooming on his face.

 

“How the mighty have fallen,” She says dryly, watching as the pedestrians scurry away from him in fright.

 

His grin grows wider, “You think I’m mighty?”

 

“Keep telling yourself that.”

 

“Oh, I will.”

 

She sighs, “Listen, Claudius, if that’s even your name-”

 

“It’s not,” He interrupts.

 

“I don’t care. Just stop interfering with what I’m doing and stop trying to hack into my system. It’s impenetrable. I run a tight ship.”

 

“Oh,” He winces, “Not a good enough situation to use the word penetrate.”

 

“Oh my god, you’re incorrigible. Have you listened to a single word I have been saying?”

 

He stretches, lifting his arms, and Clarke’s a little distracted by the movement of his muscles under the tight, black material, “Basically you’re saying that you’re threatened by my team and I. Got it.”

 

“That is not what I’m saying you egotistical jerk face. You’re the one on my territory! I have been protecting this city for months.”

 

“Well,” He deadpans, “You could use a day off. You’re off your form lately.”

 

She sucks in a deep breath, resists the urge to reach out and hit him square across the jaw, “You watch your back, Claudius. My team is going to hit you hard.”

 

“Oh come on, instead of wasting time annihilating each other, we could just work together.”

 

“I work alone.”

 

“Oh come on, don’t go all brooding superhero on me. It’s a slow night. Want to grab some food?”

 

And so that how’s Clarke Griffin finds herself eating chicken wings with Claudius at 3 in the morning. (She has to hand it to the people at KFC though. No one flinches when two masked vigilantes show up at the drive-through window demanding for the 24 piece crispy chicken set.)

 

“You have a day job?” She asks.

 

He nods, the corners of his mouth quirking up slightly, “Yeah. It’s a pretty flexible gig though. How about you?”

 

“Not that flexible,” She admits, “But most of the worst crimes don’t happen in the day anyway, so its not like I miss too much.”

 

“Plus you have your team to help you pull some off your weight,” He says observationally, ripping into another wing, “I have to say you seem like you do have something good going on.”

 

“So why are you trying to sabotage it?” She demands.

 

He has the audacity to look surprised. “I’m not. I was just testing out your defenses princess, think of it as practice for the bigger fish out there. Besides, your team put up one heck of a fight. It was fun.”

 

She rolls her eyes, exasperated. He nudges her with his elbow. She’ll be lying if she says the casual contact doesn’t thrill her a little. (Okay, so it’s been a while she’s been laid. Cut her some slack.)

 

“We don’t have to work together,” Claudius says when they are about to part ways, “But what do you think about co-existing peacefully?”

 

She pretends to think about it. “Yeah, okay.” She says after a beat, grasping his hand to shake it. It’s rough and dry and she feels calluses underneath the hardened skin. She shivers. Blames it on the frigid winds.

 

Clarke sees him a lot more after that, but in less pleasant circumstances. There’s been a rise in criminal activity lately and well. They’re not all teenagers drawing penises on vans. She finds him bleeding out in an alleyway on a Thursday morning.

 

“Jesus,” She says, hoisting his head onto her lap, “What happened to you?”

 

He smiles grimly at her, his breathing shallow, “Mugger got a knife.”

 

She shakes him a little when he closes his eyes, “Hey! Don’t fall asleep on me now. I’m getting you help.”

 

“No hospitals,” He says insistently, grabbing onto her wrist.

 

“No hospitals.” She promises as she calls for Monty to bring over the van. They have him in the lair minutes later, Clarke sewing him up on her favourite oakwood table. (They have team meetings at the table, dinners too. Jasper patches Clarke up on this very table too, and Monty always complains about how unsanitary it is. No one cares.)

 

“I can’t believe you brought our arch-nemesis to the lair,” Raven mutters under her breath, “You should have just left him in the alley.”

 

“I heard that.” Claudius says through gritted teeth.

 

“I meant for you to.” Raven says sweetly.

 

“I’m _not_ your nemesis,” He protests weakly.

 

“Tell that to Monty. He’s still mad that you tried to hack into his system all those weeks ago.”

 

“Wasn’t me,” He mumbles a little bashfully, “It was my team.”

 

“Your team can suck it.”

“Don’t mind her,” Clarke says after Raven stomps off, “She just hates it that your team is almost as good as ours.”

 

He chuckles, “Well, consider me honoured.” He’s all sweaty, hair matted to his forehead, lips parted. It’s insanely attractive. She clenches her thighs under the table and forces herself to smile cooly.

 

“You’re all done.”

 

He sits up gingerly, slowly swinging his legs off the table. She busies herself with sterilizing so she doesn’t have to look at him.

 

“Hey princess,” He says voice impossibly soft, “Thanks.”

 

She slams the scalpel down with a little more force than necessary, tries to keep the tremble out of her voice, “Just don’t get used to it.”

 

He doesn’t respond, just watches her as she goes through the entire process of sterilizing and throwing away blood soaked rags. She wonders what he’s waiting for. Decides she doesn’t care.

 

“Wanna walk me out?” He says finally.

 

It’s five in the morning and impossibly cold. She exhales, shoves her hands into the pockets of her costume. (Thanks, Raven.)

 

“Here we are,” She says abruptly, pointing to the sidewalk, “So make sure you don’t engage in over-strenuous activity in the next few days or that wound is going to reopen.”

 

“Okay,” He says woodenly.

 

Clarke fucking hates awkward silences, so she just barrels on, “Keep it clean, make sure it doesn’t get infected-”

 

He leans down and kisses her, and its soft and incredibly light, his lips a little chapped. He whispers, “Thanks a lot, princess. Really.” and she tastes his breath. She breathes out shakily against his cheek and he pulls away.

 

His smile is sad when he walks away, “See you around.” Claudius calls out and Clarke can’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, she has learned something about him today.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

She should have known that he would be a creepy, insufferable jerk about it after.

 

Ever since the kiss, Claudius has been downright annoying.

 

She heads down to the lair to find a whole fucking bouquet of flowers there for her on Monday. On Wednesday, he swoops in when she’s fighting off some gang members and takes a punch for her. On Friday, he leaves her a pretzel in the lair with a written reminder that even superheroes need to eat.

 

It’s nauseating. And embarrassing, because Raven keeps teasing her and now Monty’s chiming in too and once Jasper gets wind of it, the situations worsens because he actually creates a fansite for the both of them. (There are 1,327 members so far. Not that she’s checked or anything.)

 

So Clarke decides to confront him maturely that Saturday night. Like real adults do.

 

“Stop sending me shit I don’t need!” She yells when she catches sight of his back towards her.

 

He turns, surprised, and that’s when Clarke realises he’s not alone. Her throat feels strangely tight at the pretty girl standing in front of her, fiddling with a mask. She’s not wearing a costume, just normal clothes but there’s no denying that she’s gorgeous. Claudius’s hands are wrapped around her wrists protectively and she feels like she has just intruded on some private moment.

 

“Sorry,” She flushes, backing away, “I’ll just see you later, I guess.”

 

“Hey,” He says, “It’s okay. She’s one of the members of my team,” He stares at her searchingly, “What was the name you’re going for again?”

 

“Ophelia,” She says, grinning widely, “Because you’re Claudius, get it? I’m clever like that.”

 

“Jeez O, not Claudius from Hamlet. I meant Claudius, the Roman Emperor. Isn’t Ophelia the one who goes stir-crazy and kills herself?”

 

“Ah, fuck!” She grumbles, “God, you’re such a nerd.”

 

“Sorry.” Claudius says, tone distinctively unapologetic. “Anyway, Ophelia’s my sister. I just needed her help for something today.”

 

“Oh,” Clarke manages, “That’s erm. Cool, I guess?” Smooth, Clarke. Real smooth. Not his girlfriend, she thinks, and then quickly shoves the thought away.

 

He smiles up at her, shuffles his feet a little awkwardly. It’s stupid because he’s been sending her gifts and crap and now that she’s actually here, he can’t even look at her. Idiot.

 

“You wanna meet my team?” He says, “Considering I’ve met yours.”

 

“Sounds good,” She squeaks and tries to disguise it by coughing into her palms.

 

Turns out Claudius’s lair is not as cool as hers. It’s just an apartment down the block from her usual chinese delivery place, and he only has two other members on his team. The hacker, Monty’s arch-nemesis, she can’t help but think, has a pretty sweet setup but he also wears a beanie indoors so she’s apprehensive. The other guy, whose job isn’t exactly specified, has a scar across his face and grimaces every time she looks at him. She likes him better.

 

He’s walking her out when he asks, “So what was it you wanted to talk to me about again?”

 

“Nothing,” She says a little too quickly, “I forgot.”

 

He throws his head back, laughs, and Clarke nearly trips over her own feet. God. It’s a good look on him.

 

“Did you eat the pretzel I left you?” He says, a little cocky now, and she pinches his side. He yelps a little, pretends to make a big deal out of it. They play fight until he walks her back to the lair again and she can’t help but tense because what if he kisses her again? And the weird tension is back and Clarke can’t help but hold her breath when he leans a little closer.

 

But all he does is brush a strand of hair out of her face, tugging it gently.

 

“See you tomorrow.” He says a little hoarsely.

 

“Bye,” She calls out, all breathless. She then proceeds to spend the next twenty minutes berating herself for having a crush on a guy whose name she doesn’t even know yet.

 

The more time she spends with him, the worst it gets. She looks out for him when she patrols the streets, gets disappointed when he doesn’t show up or their paths don’t meet. It’s downright pathetic, mooning over a boy like that. Clarke hates herself.

 

Then she gets the shit beat out of her and her day significantly worsens.

 

It was another one of those gangs and she hardly gets overpowered but there were seven of them and they had baseball bats. Clarke’s pretty sure there’s no internal bleeding but her body is stiff and sore and she can barely move.

 

She slumps over to the side, wincing when sweat drips into her eye. Shit. She should get moving but she’s so tired. She contemplates just closing her eyes and falling asleep right here but she might get hypothermia.

“Princess?”

 

He’s over by her side in seconds, hands clumsily running over her body to asses for injuries. If she wasn’t so tired, she’ll be embarrassed.

 

“What the hell happened to you?” He says angrily, “Jesus. Let me bring you back-”

 

“It’s fine,” She says, pulling herself to her feet, “I’m not seriously injured, just a little banged up.”

 

He grabs her hip, pulling her close to his side and she leans heavily against him. Every part of her aches and she just wants to sit down and maybe sleep for the next 48 hours. Vigilantism is hard.

 

They’re quiet for a while and Clarke presses her head against his chest, listens for his heartbeat. He exhales into her hair, says, “In the mood for burgers?” and she laughs.

 

Clarke has to hand it to the people at McDonald’s. They don’t even bat an eyelid when they turn up at the drive-through window and ask for quarter pounders with extra fries.

 

They sit against the wall by a nearly deserted gas station, Claudius tearing into his burger with extra vigour. Clarke’s ravenous but lifting her arms to bring the burger to her mouth causes spasms of pain to erupt all over her body, so she sticks to slowly ducking her head down every few seconds to nibble away at her burger. It’s one of the worst feelings in her life.

 

“I’ve been watching you struggle with that burger for thirty minutes,” He says wearily, reaching out to take it from her, “Look, let me help you.”

 

He tears a chunk of the burger with his hands and feeds her. It’s humiliating, Clarke decides, but also kind of sweet. He blushes every time her lips brushes against his fingers and it emboldens her enough to ask.

 

“What’s your real name?”

 

He smiles, tugs at the edge of her mask with his non-greasy hand, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

 

“Okay.” She says simply.

 

He inhales sharply when she removes her mask, then recovers quickly enough to say, “I know you. You work at the hospital near my workplace.”

 

“Yeah, I'm a doctor.”

 

“Well, that explains how neat your stitches are.”

 

She reaches out slightly, brushing her fingers over his nose, the edge of his jaw. He tenses when her fingers linger on the edge of his mask but he doesn’t stop her. She pulls it off slowly and she finally, finally gets to look at him properly.

 

The first thing she notices is the freckles, scattered all over his face. The dark brown eyes, the angular jaw. Clarke traces the edge of his lips with her pointer finger and his breath warms her fingers.

 

“History professor,” He says, voice oddly strained, “Just one block away from the hospital.”

 

“Huh. Weird coincidence.”

 

“Tell me about it.”

 

She laughs and her entire body throbs. She grins into the night air, exhilarated by the turn of events and then peeks at him from the corner of her eye. He’s staring at her, as if in awe, and yeah, Clarke thinks she could get used to him looking at her like that.

 

“Clarke Griffin.” She says, sticking her hand out for him to shake.

 

“Bellamy Blake,” He answers, squeezing her palm, and she decides that, yeah, she likes it way better than Claudius.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

The internet explodes the next day when someone gets a shot of them making out with their masks on.

 

**fin.**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry just Bellamy Blake with a bow does things to me. Also, I watched Avengers and wrote this instead of working on my paper so.


End file.
